Unlocking the Bible. David Pawson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ If the occasions when the numbers 3, 7, and 10 occur are examined, some astonishing links emerge.

      At only three points does God actually create something out of nothing. On three occasions he calls something by name, three times he makes something, and three times he blesses something.

      On seven occasions we read that God ‘saw that it was good’. There are, of course, seven days – and the first sentence is seven words in Hebrew. Furthermore, the last three sentences in this account of creation are also each formed of seven words in the original Hebrew.

      And there are ten commands of God.

      SIMPLICITY

      The style of Genesis 1 is in marked contrast to other ‘creation stories’, for example the Babylonian epic of creation, which is very complicated and weird and has little link with reality. The simplicity of the Genesis account of creation has not been universally applauded, however. Some have suggested that this simplistic approach is proof that the Bible cannot be considered as serious in the modern era. But there is much to be said in defence of this simple approach.

      Imagine describing how a house is built in a children’s book. You would want it to be accurate but simplified so that the young readers would be able to follow the process. You might write about the bricklayer who laid the bricks, the carpenter who worked on the windows, the door frame and the roof joists. You might mention the plumber who put the pipes in, the electrician who came to put the wires in, the plasterer who plasters the walls and the decorator who paints them.

      Written in this way the description has six basic stages, but of course building a house is far more complicated than that. It requires the synchronizing and overlapping of different workers for particular periods of time. No one would say that the description given in the children’s book is wrong or misleading, just that it is rather more complex in reality. In the same way there is no doubt that Genesis is a simplification and that science can fill out a whole lot more detail for us. But God’s purpose was not to provide detailed scientific accuracy. Rather it was to give an orderly explanation that everyone could follow and accept, and which underlined that he knew what he was doing.

      Scientific questions

      Understanding the need for simplicity does not answer all the questions which arise from the Genesis account of creation. In particular we must consider the speed at which creation took place and the age of the earth, two separate but interrelated areas. Geologists tell us that the earth must have taken four and a quarter billion years to form, while Genesis seems to say it took just six days. Which is correct?

      In terms of the order of creation there is broad agreement between scientists’ findings and the Genesis account. Science agrees with the order of Genesis 1, with one exception: the sun, moon and stars do not appear until the fourth day, after the plants are made. This seems contradictory until we realize that the original earth was covered with a thick cloud or mist. Scientific enquiry confirms the likelihood of this. So when the first light appeared, it would just be seen as lighter cloud, whereas once the plants came and started turning carbon dioxide into oxygen, the mist was cleared and for the first time the sun, moon and stars were visible in the sky. The appearance of sun, moon and stars was therefore due to the clearing away of the thick cloud that surrounded the earth. So science does agree exactly with the order of Genesis 1. Creatures appeared in the sea before they appeared on the land. Man appeared last.

      While scientists generally agree with the Bible on the order of creation, there are still areas of major conflict. These include the origin of animals and humans and a host of associated questions, including the age of the people who lived before and after the Flood, the extent of the Flood, and the whole question of evolution versus creation.

      Before becoming involved in the detail of such questions, however, it is important to note that there are three ways of handling this problem of science versus Scripture. It is vital to decide how you are going to approach the problem before you do so. You must choose whether to repudiate, to segregate or to integrate.

      REPUDIATION

      The first approach offers a choice. Either Scripture is right, or science is right, but you must repudiate one or the other: you cannot accept both. Typically unbelievers believe science, believers believe Scripture and both bury their heads in the sand about the other.

      The problem with repudiating science if you are a Christian is that science has been right in so many areas. We owe so much of our modern communication to scientific development, for example. Science is not the enemy some Christians seem to believe it to be.

      The story of the discovery of ‘Piltdown man’ is a case in point. When a skull from a creature which seemed to be half-man half-ape was discovered at Piltdown in Sussex in 1912, many saw it as evidence of some form of evolution. When it was later found that the skull was actually a forgery, Christians were quick to pour scorn on science. They forgot that it was science which had discovered the skull to be a fake in the first place!

      Choosing between science and the Bible thus has problems attached. We should not accept scientific truth unquestioningly, but neither should we be foolish enough to call people to commit intellectual suicide in order to believe the Bible. It is not necessary.

      SEGREGATION

      The second approach is to keep science and Scripture as far apart as possible. Science is concerned with one kind of truth and Scripture with another. This view claims that science is concerned with physical or material truth, whereas Scripture is concerned with moral and supernatural truth. The two deal with entirely separate issues. Science tells us how and when the world came to be. Scripture tells us who made it and why. They are to be kept entirely separate for there is no overlap to be concerned about. Science talks about facts; Scripture talks about values and we should not look to the one for the other.

      This approach has become very common even in churches. It comes from a mindset shaped by Greek thinking, where the physical and the spiritual are kept in two watertight compartments. This kind of thinking is alien to the Hebrew mind, however, which saw God as Creator and Redeemer, with the physical and the spiritual belonging together.

      If we take this segregated approach to Genesis we will be forced to treat the narrative as myth. Genesis 3 becomes a fable entitled ‘How the snake lost its legs’, and Adam becomes ‘Everyman’. The book becomes full of fictional stories teaching us values about God and about ourselves, and showing us how to think about God and about ourselves – but we must not press them into historical fact.

      Just as Hans Christian Andersen wrote children’s books which taught moral values, according to this approach Genesis has stories with moral truths but no historical truth. Adam and Eve were myths, and Noah and the Flood was also a myth. This outlook extends beyond the Genesis narratives, of course, for once one questions the historicity of one section of the Bible it is a small step to question others also. This approach therefore leaves us with no history left in the Bible: plenty of values but few facts.

      As with repudiation, then, the attempt to segregate science and Scripture also has its problems. In fact, Scripture and science are like overlapping circles: they do deal with some things that are the same and so apparent contradictions must be faced. And it undermines the whole Bible if we pretend that it is factually inaccurate but still has value. How then are we going to resolve the problem? Can the third approach help us bring science and Scripture together?

      INTEGRATION

      In trying to understand how to integrate the two, we need to remember two basic things, both equally important: the transitional nature of scientific investigations, and the changes in our interpretation of Scripture.

      1. СКАЧАТЬ